“Ruby, you’re pale.”
“Sorry,” I said, “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I think it’s just the combination of everything. The food truck being in for repairs and the mystery and now this… a clandestine meeting. What if it’s got nothing to do with the murder?”
“Then we’ll follow another lead,” Bee said. “But, between you and me—”
“Who else would it be between?”
“—between you and me,” Bee repeated, “I think we’re about to get the clue we’ve been waiting for.”
We circled around the rough stone side of the church and found the door the note had mentioned. “Here we go,” I whispered.
Bee tried it then frowned. The heavy door didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”
“Locked? But why would the person who sent the email have told Harper to come through the side door if it was locked?”
“Maybe it’s a trap. They could be waiting in the…” Bee trailed off—there weren’t bushes anywhere nearby, but there were trees much further back, across the green grass that the pastor clearly tended to. Or the gardener who worked for the church. Not that it mattered.
Heavens, my mind was all over the place.
“Let’s go around the front,” Bee said. “We can check out the side door from the inside. Besides, it’s only 9:45 am. We’re early.”
Hopefully, Bee’s explanation was correct. That or we’d somehow gotten the wrong time? But no, the email had been clear. 10 am on Saturday.
We walked back around to the front of the church, arm-in-arm, and entered it. The inside of the church was gorgeous. A colored-glass window sat above the pulpit, and the pews were polished and decorated with the odd crimson cushion. The stone floor was accented by a central rug that trailed between the pews and led up to the front dais.
“Look at this place,” I said. “It’s so historical.”
“It is.” Bee said, looking up at the ceiling and the gallery of chairs above. “Big enough to seat the entire town.”
I tugged on her arm, and we strode between the pews, our footsteps muted on the carpeting then loud on the stone. We headed for the side of the church, but the door there was still shut and the place was silent.
Bee and I waited in one of the pews, bowing our heads and darting glances to the supposed meeting spot, until fifteen minutes had passed. And then another five.
“Nothing,” Bee said, checking her watch. “Did we get the time wrong? The meeting place?”
“No, we didn’t. Maybe they called it off. Or maybe Harper decided she wasn’t going to show.”
“But then the one who organized the meeting would still be here.”
“Right.” I got up and walked to the side door of the church—it was sequestered in an alcove separate from the church’s main worship area. I frowned, folding my arms and peering around at the empty section.
“What’s that?” Bee asked, just as I’d spotted it.
A book had been left next to the door. A book I recognized. It had a thick, purple leather cover and the word ‘journal’ printed across its front.
“My diary,” I said, and picked it up. I flipped it open, and a note fell from it.
Bee caught the letter before I could. “Hide this for me.” Bee turned the note over. “That’s all it says.”
The dots connected, and I shook my head. The person who had broken into my truck was the same one who’d organized a meeting with Harper. And that person had probably written me the note as ‘Daniel’ as well. I flipped through my journal, and found a few entries had been marked with a folded corner of the page. They all had details of my history with Daniel, my fears and insecurities.
I flushed red-hot.
Who had done this? And why?
“We should go find Harper,” Bee said. “She has to know what’s going on. She’s in on this.”
“Shouldn’t we speak to Detective Wilkes, first?”
“No. No, we shouldn’t. Let’s confront her. She’ll know something, Ruby. We’ll squeeze it out of her.”
And that meant it was back to the gallery. At least, I wasn’t anxious anymore. Now, I was downright angry. I’d come to the town to sell cookies and cupcakes and donuts, not to be targeted by murderers and whatever Harper was.
“It’s OK,” Bee said, patting me on the shoulder. “We’ll find out who did this. Harper has to know.”
I slapped my journal shut, slid it into my handbag, and followed her out of the church.
Harper Kelly was nowhere to be found. We’d tried the gallery, we’d checked the cafes and restaurants in town, and even asked Mrs. Rickleston at the front desk if she’d heard anything. The only option we had left was to contact our new glitzy friend, Lucy, but we didn’t have her number and the nail salon closed early on a Saturday.
That was the only curse of small towns—it was never certain when places would be open, and there wasn’t a convenience store to speak of here. Just a local ‘market’ that would order items in if they didn’t have them. And that could take weeks.
“Let’s take this out onto the back porch,” Bee said, lifting her mug.
Mrs. Rickleston had set up a coffee and cakes station next to the front desk. It was a popular addition, and I’d already grabbed myself two mini-lemon meringue tartlets and a cup of coffee. Bee held a jelly donut on her plate, and a cup of coffee too.
If we couldn’t pin the murder on Harper or squeeze her for information, at least we could drown our sorrows in good coffee and treats.
The back porch of the inn was sheltered from the harsh wind, with an arrangement of outdoor armchairs and a lounging sofa facing the view of the grass and trees behind it. Birds chirped and flittered from branch-to-branch, and the sun, still hiding its shine behind clouds, was washed out when it did appear.
“Well,” Bee said, taking a bite of her jelly donut. “That was a waste of time.”
“I don’t get it. Where could she be? People don’t just disappear off the face of the earth. Unless she’s gone into hiding because of that email she received?”
“She did delete it,” Bee said.
“That’s got to mean something.”
“Hmm, it might mean that she was just following instructions. After all, that was what the guy said in the email—delete after opening or reading or whatever,” Bee said. “Not that it’s a guy. Maybe it was Olivia who sent it.”
“Or O’Leary. He’s the most suspicious out of everyone we’ve met so far. I mean, an ex-mob man? And he despised Misty. Do we know who’s inherited the bakery yet?” I asked.
“No news.” Bee shook her head. “But it has to break sometime soon. The funeral’s done and dusted.”
“Poor choice of words.”
Bee shrugged. “And from what Mrs. Rickleston has said, the family solicitor has been hovering around town.”
“I hope that gives us another lead because this is ridiculous. We’re hitting dead-ends no matter which way we go.” I set down my coffee cup on the table between the armchairs and pinched the bridge of my nose. “What do you think about the meeting?”
“Which one? The fake Daniel one or the Harper one.”
The fake meeting with whoever had written the note had passed. We didn’t have enough information to confront whoever had written it yet, and the thought of going to meet a murderer scared me. I had a black belt in karate but faced with a gun or knife? That probably wouldn’t mean much.
Better to let the meeting pass and focus on the case. If the murderer was persistent, assuming it was the murderer who’d written the note, they would try again.
Now, there was a sure-fire way to make a girl shiver.
“Harper,” I prompted. “Why didn’t she show up to the meeting? It can only mean that she ran away before it. I mean, she seems to have left her gallery in a rush?”
“Or she’s just running errands.”
“And no one’s seen her this morning? That doesn’t make sense.”
Bee nodded. “What do we do now?”<
br />
“You’re asking me? You’re the ex-cop!”
“And you’re the ex-investigative journalist. Boy, there’s a mouthful.” Bee finished off her donut and licked sugar off her lips. “We have to find Harper. That or we need to find out who she was meeting with.”
“Yes, but there’s no way to do that, is there?” An idea blinked to life like a lightbulb above my head. “Hold on a second.” I grabbed my handbag from next to the chair and lifted it into my lap. I extracted the threatening note I’d received from ‘Daniel.’ “Do you still have the note that was in my journal at the church?”
“The ‘hide this for me’ note? Sure.” Bee brought it out of her pocket and opened it up.
I took it from her and compared them. “Same handwriting,” I said. “Look, see how the ‘m’ is shaped with the twirl on the end?”
“I see it,” Bee said, “but all that tells us is that the person who wrote the fake note is the same one who stole your journal.”
“And broke into the truck. And they’re friends with Harper. And—”
A plangent meow sounded from the end of the porch. I blinked. Good heavens, that was loud.
I opened my mouth to continue my thought, but the meow came a second time.
“Does Mrs. Rickleston have any cats?” I asked.
“Not that I can remember.”
I got up and searched for the kitty. It sat next to the porch, white as snow, its yellow eyes blinking up at me. It meowed again then hunched into position for a jump and wiggled its furry butt. It leaped up onto the porch railing and pranced back and forth meowing impetuously.
“Hello,” I said. “How are you?” I put out a hand.
The kitty-cat sniffed it, turned up its nose and continued its pacing on the porch-rail.
“Friendly, isn’t it?” Bee laughed. “Nothing like our Trouble.”
Trouble had been the kitten at the last guesthouse we’d stayed in. But this snowy-white cat didn’t have collar or tag. And it wasn’t interested in being touched by me. Each time I reached out, it batted at my hand or hissed.
“I think it’s a stray,” I said. “Maybe we should take it to the vet?”
“That’s if you can get your hands on it without it scratching them off.”
“You wouldn’t hurt me, would you, kit?” I put out my hand, and the cat’s paw slashed out. Its claws scratched burning lines into my skin. I snatched my arm to my side. “All right, so you may have a point. But it wants something.”
“Food, most likely.” Bee rose. “I’ll get some shredded chicken from Mrs. Rickleston, and ask her if she’s seen this cat before.”
I waited with the increasingly loud and potentially anxious kitty until Bee came back with two bowls. One with water and one with shredded chicken. She set them down on the porch then we both backed up and sat down to watch the cat.
It stared at us, flicking its tail, then leaped down and started eating.
“There,” Bee said. “Just hungry. Mrs. Rickleston said that it’s the cat of a deceased guest.”
“What? That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, apparently the cat had gone missing a day or two before the woman died. And they couldn’t find it again. It turns up once in a while for food but never stays long enough for Mrs. Rickleston to contact the woman’s family. They live in Chicago.”
“Oh no.”
The kitty ate noisily, finally purring.
“Does she know its name?”
“Snowy,” Bee said. “It’s a girl cat.”
“Snowy.” I lifted my voice. “Snowy, here kitty.”
Snowy paused her chicken evisceration to stare at me. She blinked, sneezed, then returned to her meal.
“Well, I think she should see a vet, just to be sure she’s not sick or anything,” I said. “We’ll have to soften her up somehow to get her into a cat carrier.”
“We’ll have to get a cat carrier.”
It was the least of our worries at the moment, what with the food truck out of commission and the murderer on the loose, but with no leads, helping Snowy would be a worthy distraction. Besides, she was spunky. I liked that.
Snowy finished her meal, took a few sips of water then leaped back onto the railing and over the other side. She trotted off across the lawn and disappeared between some trees.
“Maybe next time,” I said.
I had the suspicious feeling that I might be saying that about this murder investigation. If we didn’t find Harper Kelly soon.
17
That night, I lay in bed with a book open on my lap, twiddling my toes under the covers and frowning. I’d reread the same line about ten times, and that wasn’t like me. I was the type who disappeared into books without much prompting. My room was as small and sweet as ever, comfortable and warm, with a fire that had been lit in the fireplace by the turndown service, but I couldn’t get cozy.
It’s the meeting. It doesn’t make any sense.
I sighed and pinned my finger between the book’s pages, casting a glance over at the alarm clock on my bedside table.
9 pm.
I narrowed my eyes at the pearly white face of the alarm clock. 9 pm. Why did that seem important?
Relax, you’re too stressed.
But no, there was something important about that time. Wasn’t there? I found my book marker, slipped it between the pages, and set my book aside, nudging the clock.
“You need to sleep. It’s getting late.” The lecture did nothing to relax me. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and put on my slippers. “Late. Not early.” The words left my mouth, and I frowned, tilting my head to one side. “Late. Not early.”
What had the email said?
That Harper was to meet the mystery sender at the church at ten. And to use the side door. But we’d been there at 10 am and nothing had happened. Harper hadn’t shown up. The book had been waiting, but Harper and the person, whoever, they were, hadn’t been anywhere to be found.
I sucked in a gasp.
Of course!
“Not morning. Night!” I leaped out of bed and ran out into the hall. I hammered my fists on Bee’s door. “Bee! Wake up! Bee?”
Bee’s door opened, and she stood holding it, her hair in disarray, a sleeping mask shoved up onto her forehead. “Are you trying to wake the dead?”
“No, but Bee—”
“So just the entire inn then.”
“It wasn’t in the morning.”
“Huh?”
“The meeting! The meeting wasn’t meant to be at 10 am, it was supposed to be at 10 pm. We just assumed it was in the morning because… well, I don’t know why. Because we just went with it.”
Bee’s scowl evaporated. “What time is it?”
“It’s just past nine.”
“I’ll meet you downstairs in five minutes,” Bee said, and slapped the door shut in my face.
I didn’t have a problem with the rudeness. I was too excited about what was to come—catching Harper and her accomplice in action.
Bee and I wore our all-black outfits with matching gloves, even though it felt a little ridiculous sneaking through the park, past the duck pond and along the lamp lit pathways toward the opposite street. The church loomed through the semi-darkness.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked.
“Born ready,” Bee replied.
The church drew closer and closer, and with it, my anxiety heightened. Who were we about to see meeting with Harper? Was Harper even there at all? Or had she already been ‘disposed of’ by the murderer.
Not that it was necessarily the murderer who had written the note. But who else would it have been?
Get control of your crazy thoughts, woman.
We reached the front of the church and slipped through the open gates. They were never locked, but this time, the front doors of the church were shut tight.
Bee and I moved into single file and moved around the side of the church, toward the door that had been closed earlier. It was ever-so-slightly ope
n now. Light spilled from within, but it had a flickering quality. Candlelight? A fire?
I signaled to Bee, and she gestured for me to go on ahead.
The soft rumble of someone talking came from within the church, but it didn’t seem near to the door, so I took my chance and slipped inside. The separate little alcove was empty—the flickering light came from between the pews nearby, or from one in particular.
Bee came in behind me, and we positioned ourselves, skirting toward the pillars that separated the pew area from the side alcove. I peered out from behind one and forced myself not to gasp.
Pastor Jack Byrne sat next to Harper on one of the pews. A flickering candle had been placed on the end of the pew, casting light over their meeting.
“—don’t understand what you mean,” Harper said.
I checked my watch. It was just past 10 pm now. Thankfully, our trek across the park had delayed us. Who knew what would’ve happened if we’d arrived at the same time as Harper.
“Darling, you must understand. I left it right by the door for you,” Jack said.
Darling?
Puzzle pieces clicked into place—Jack was having an affair with Harper! He was the pastor and had a loyal wife. If Misty would’ve blackmailed Harper about anything, it had to be that.
Hold your horses. Maybe he’s just being endearing to a member of his ‘flock.’
Jack lifted Harper’s hand from her lap and kissed the back of it, gently. “I don’t want to get angry with you, dear.”
“Angry with me? Listen, I arrived and there was nothing by the door. If there was, I’d have it with me right now. Besides, why didn’t you just give whatever it was to me here? We’re already sitting with each other.”
“I don’t want to risk it,” Jack said. “I had to wipe it down.”
“Wipe what down?” Harper asked, exasperation in her tone.
“The book. The journal. That snooping baker’s journal. Remember? The one I told you I’d gotten my hands on?”
The Bite-Sized Bakery Cozy Mysteries Box Set Page 46
